As a continuation of the earlier article, titled “Saudi Arabia and the approaching decisive deterrence towards Houthis! printed in Saudi Gazette newspaper on September 14, 2026, one query inevitably arises: Why did the Houthis cross all of the crimson strains?
The reply is easy: as a result of they acknowledge no crimson strains. They’re merely puppets, obediently executing the orders of their masters in Iran. Tehran might discover no yet another keen to undergo such blind obedience in its pursuit of dismembering various and historical Arab nations comparable to Yemen, simply because it has achieved in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria—leaving them fragmented, divided, and ravaged by poverty, ignorance, and destruction.
However there’s one essential distinction: this (Arab) Yemen has resisted the Houthis. Tehran’s proxies have managed to occupy solely Sana’a and some districts within the north of the nation.
The crimson strains have been crossed when the Houthis moved their “blackmail, aggression, and crimes” from concentrating on Saudi Arabia and its oil amenities to violating each boundary by launching drones towards Makkah—the holiest place for Muslims and residential to the Holy Kaaba and the Haram.
Earlier than the world might recuperate from the shock of the tried drone assault on the Sacred Home of God, the Houthis surprised it as soon as once more by attacking the town of Taif. The assault resulted within the dying of a Yemeni resident.
The irony is stark: the Houthis kill Yemenis indiscriminately inside Yemen, and so they kill them past Yemen’s borders as effectively—with out restraint!
Maybe essentially the most correct description of what the Houthis are doing to Saudi Arabia got here from an American information web site, which characterised it as blackmailing Saudi Arabia.
But Saudi Arabia is hardly unfamiliar with those that have mastered the audacity of blackmail. It has gathered in depth expertise in coping with such ways. Nothing frightens or unsettles it anymore. Its response has as an alternative turn into evident: deny those that search to blackmail it what they need and what they’re striving to acquire.
In actuality, the Houthis are trying to kill ten birds with one stone. They search to blackmail Saudi Arabia into lifting monitoring on ports and airports. This monitoring is imposed below UN resolutions geared toward stopping Iran from supplying the Houthis with weapons, drone and missile elements, and sending “specialists” to coach their fighters.
On the similar time, Saudi Arabia is absolutely honoring its obligations towards the Yemeni individuals. It continues to offer humanitarian and reduction help and medical convoys, whereas opening its doorways to hundreds of thousands of Yemenis fleeing the Houthis’ oppression, injustice, and crimes.
Now, the Houthis are opening a brand new chapter of their marketing campaign of blackmail by searching for to grab management of Yemen’s western coast, significantly the islands overlooking Bab al-Mandab.
They’re declaring that the Bab al-Mandab Strait is open to worldwide navigation—except Saudi ships.
They’re additionally coordinating with Iranian proxies in Iraq to focus on the East-West oil pipeline, apparently believing that this represents the final word act of blackmail: that Saudi Arabia might be left with no choices for exporting its oil, fertilizers, and petrochemicals.
This can be a superficial technique—and one that’s destined to show deeply flawed. Closing the Bab al-Mandab Strait to ships, tankers, and oil and petrochemical shipments wouldn’t merely hurt Saudi Arabia. It will hurt the whole world.
Saudi Arabia undoubtedly possesses the manpower, energy, and alliances essential to defend itself and retaliate towards the Houthis and Iran’s proxies in Iraq. All it will require is to activate that energy and people alliances.
However Saudi Arabia has kept away from doing so, pursuing what may be described as “strategic persistence” within the face of Houthi-Iranian aggression. This method displays a broader calculation: Saudi Arabia doesn’t wish to see the area engulfed in flames or descend into yet one more cycle of wars and conflicts.
Saudi Arabia is succesful—certainly, very succesful—of educating the Houthis classes that their leaders, and their masters in Qom and Tehran, will always remember.
With its forces, personnel, gear, and large arms offers, Saudi Arabia possesses the potential to inflict upon them a defeat that they might discover extraordinarily troublesome to just accept, maybe solely getting ready to collapse.
They’ve chosen “felony blackmail.” They have to subsequently bear its penalties. They are going to style woe, destruction, and hearth.
Saudi Arabia is affected person. However when it strikes, it hurts and it retaliates twofold. There isn’t a comfort for the haters.
